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 For the sake of brevity the court does not here address all of plaintiff several claims

against the 18 defendants he has named. Instead only those claims relevant to this motion are

addressed.

1

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

VANCE EDWARD JOHNSON,

Plaintiff, No. CIV S-04-0776 LKK EFB P

vs.

D. L. RUNNELS, et al.,

Defendants. ORDER

 /

Plaintiff is a state prisoner proceeding without counsel in an action brought under 42

U.S.C. § 1983. Currently before the court is defendants’ motion for a protective order. See Fed.

R. Civ. P. 26(c). Defendants seek an order relieving them from the obligation of responding to

an excessive number of irrelevant and vague requests for admission. As explained below,

defendants’ request must be granted.

I. Facts

Plaintiff’s third amended complaint claims that eighteen defendants in various ways

subjected him to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.1

 On June

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 Counsel asserts that retyping plaintiff’s 127 requests to defendant Chapman alone took

an experienced secretary about 10 hours. Gatlin Dec., ¶ 5. 

2

12, 2008, seventeen defendants received one set of requests for admissions. Each request served

sought admission of more than 120 facts, except for Briddle, from whom plaintiff sought

admission of 116 facts. Rather than attach all of the requests for admission to their motion,

defendants submit a copy of the request served on defendant Chapman.2 They assert, and

plaintiff does not deny, that this request is representative of all requests to the 17 defendants. As

noted by defendants, plaintiff’s only claim against Chapman is that Chapman failed to intervene

when defendants Weaver and Houghland used excessive force on plaintiff on December 31,

2002. Third Am. Comp at 10. 

Plaintiff’s request asks the defendant to admit or deny that various laws and regulations

were the “governing law” at the time of the events giving rise to this action. Defs.’ Mot., Ex. A,

1-3. He requests the defendant to admit or deny that knowing the details of these provisions was

part of his job, and whether the defendant knows of particular rules and regulations about matters

such as placement in administrative segregation, the general treatment of prisoners, the use of

confidential sources and the use of force. Id., at 3, 8-12, 14-15, 17-18, 20. Plaintiff asks about

the defendant’s knowledge of poor weather and driving conditions, a blackout, and a lockdown

because of the blackout from December 29, 2002, until December 31, 2002. Id., at 3-5. He

further asks the defendant to admit or deny knowledge of plaintiff’s race, plaintiff’s having been

extracted from his cell, the atmosphere of the prison around December 29, whether plaintiff had

been “profiled for apprehension,” deemed a threat to the institution, listed as dangerous or

deemed to have belonged to a gang. Id., at 5-6, 12-13, 16. He asks the defendant to admit or

deny the details of plaintiff’s escort from one part of the prison to another, where plaintiff was

housed, where plaintiff worked, and whether the defendant was “inconvenienced by the

warden’s surprised emergency plan of action inmate sweep?” Id., at 6-7. Finally, he asks the

defendant to admit or deny various facts about an “inmate sweep.” Id., at 19-21. Defendants

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seek an order relieving them from the obligation of responding to these requests.

II. Standards 

 “Upon motion by a party or by the person from whom discovery is sought, . . . and for

good cause shown, the court in which the action is pending . . . may make any order which

justice requires to protect a party or person from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or

undue burden or expense . . . .” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c). “For good cause to exist, the party

seeking protection bears the burden of showing specific prejudice or harm will result if no

protective order is granted.” Phillips v. Gen. Motors Corp., 307 F.3d 1206, 1210-11 (9th Cir.

2002). “Good cause” exists when justice requires the protection of a party or a person from any

annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense. Alexander v. F.B.I., 186

F.R.D. 60, 71 (Dist. D. C. 1998). “Broad allegations of harm, unsubstantiated by specific

examples or articulated reasoning, do not satisfy the Rule 26(c) test.” Beckman Indus., Inc. v.

Int'l Ins. Co., 966 F.2d 470, 476 (9th Cir.1992). The objections serving as the basis of a

protective order should be “plain enough and specific enough” to permit the court to understand

the factual underpinning of a party’s objections. See Davis v. Fendler, 650 F.2d 1154, 1160 (9th

Cir. 1981). 

The particular discovery mechanism plaintiff uses here is governed by Rule 36 of the

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Pursuant to this rule, a party may serve on any other party

written requests for admission. Fed. R. Civ. P. 36(a)(1). The information sought must be within

the scope of discovery, i.e., any matter not privileged and which is reasonably calculated to lead

to admissible evidence. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). Obviously, for evidence to be admissible it

must be relevant to a claim or defense in issue. The Local Rules of this Court require that

“[r]esponses to requests for admission shall set forth each request in full before each response.” 

E.D. Cal. L. R. 36-250(a).

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III. Analysis

Defendants contend that plaintiff’s requests are unduly burdensome, and for the most

part, seek information that is outside the scope of discovery. Defendants note that they have no

objection to plaintiff “propounding a single set of streamlined and relevant requests for

admissions.” Defs.’ Mot., at 6-7. For his part, plaintiff dismisses each of defendants’ assertions

without attempting to explain the relevance of any request or acknowledging the time and work

involved in responding to his requests. Pl.’s Opp’n, at 1-3. For example, rather than addressing

the relevancy of the requests plaintiff quibbles with defendants’ assertion that they received the

requests on or around June 12, 2008, as defendants have stated. Defs.’ Mot., at 3. Plaintiff,

raising a dispute that is simply beside the point, accuses them of dishonesty, asserting that he

served the requests on June 8, 2008. Pl.’s Opp’n, at 1. Plaintiff’s glibly contentious arguments

do not help him in this matter.

Fundamentally, Rule 36 is “designed to reduce trial time.” Advisory Committee Notes,

1970 Amendment to Rule 36. First, it is meant “to facilitate proof with respect to issues that

cannot be eliminated from the case,” and “to narrow the issues by eliminating those that can be.” 

Id. In no way is this discovery tool meant to be a fishing expedition. Rather, the overall goal is

to “enable[] the requesting party to avoid the burdensome accumulation of proof prior to the

pretrial conference.” Id. Thus, the investigation required to answer a request for admission need

only be “reasonable”, such that “[i]n most instances, the investigation will be necessary either to

his own case or to preparation for rebuttal.” Even when it is not, the information may be close

enough at hand to be readily obtainable.” Id. Here, defendants have shown that devoting

resources to respond the unfocused and largely irrelevant requests at issue here would be highly

burdensome and wasteful of limited resources. Some of plaintiff’s requests are essentially

redundant. See Defs.’ Mot., Ex. A, Requests 11-14 (regarding weather and driving conditions). 

Others do not appear to be within the scope of discovery. See, e.g., Id., Ex. A, Requests 36-38

(regarding effect of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on prison policy from December

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 The tone of plaintiff’s rely to this proposal suggests that he is more interested in

unproductive quarreling than he is in conducting meaningful discovery.

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31, 2002, to January 15, 2003), 1-6 (regarding laws and rules in effect at the time of the events

giving rise to this action), 85 (regarding post 9-11-2001 treatment of Muslim Relgious Group

Members); and 51-56 (regarding officer’s dress code, including name tags). Plaintiff has not

attempted to narrow the scope of his requests to facts relevant to this case. Thus, while a

particular defendant’s presence and the scope of his authority at the time plaintiff was removed

from his cell may be relevant and susceptible to requests for admission, for the most part it does

not appear that this is the sort of request that plaintiff has made. Based on defendants’ showing

as to the extent of resources necessary to conduct the reasonable investigation required by Rule

36 and respond to the several requests for admissions involved here the court finds that it would

be unduly burdensome in light of the unfocused and largely irrelevant nature of plaintiff’s

requests.

While counsel has offered to permit plaintiff to reformulate and re-serve his requests,

plaintiff has dismissed this offer as “the epitome of attempting to elude answering discovery

requests and further delay of prosecution.”3

 Pl.’s Opp’n, at 5. Defendants made this offer in

good faith, and plaintiff has had ample time to accept and to submit a new set of requests for

admissions, but he has not. Thus, the defendants are not further obliged to assist plaintiff in

tailoring his over broad and unduly burdensome requests.

IV. Conclusion

For the reasons stated above, the court finds that the defendants have demonstrated good

cause for a protective order. Accordingly, their motion is granted and it is ORDERED

defendants are relieved of their obligation to respond to the requests for admission served on or

around June 8, 2008, and which they received on or around June 12, 2008.

Dated: November 21, 2008.

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